


Fire

by paperstorm



Series: IRL [9]
Category: 5 Seconds of Summer (Band)
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M, Muke - Freeform, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-21
Updated: 2016-02-21
Packaged: 2018-05-22 11:36:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,450
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6077895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paperstorm/pseuds/paperstorm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Michael gets burned during a show at Wembley.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fire

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this scene like the day after Michael's accident and never did anything with it. I'm still not really sure what it is but it fits with the theme of this series so ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

Luke doesn’t see it happen. They’re just playing, like the always do. The wail of the last few notes, the grungey whine of guitars and the roar of the crowd. It’s a high, when it’s over, like a head rush that usually lasts the whole night. Luke doesn’t know how any of them ever get any sleep on nights like this. And then he looks around, expecting to find his bandmates exactly where they always are, but the space to his left is empty. There’s no one to his right either, Michael and Calum both took off before the song was even fully over? Weird.   
  
Luke looks back to Ashton and he’s noticed too, but he shrugs and yells “Thank you Wembley!” into deafening cheers and they he and Luke make their exit as well. They’ll all be back in a minute anyway. There hasn’t been a show yet without an encore. Sometimes Luke thinks the crowd would be happy if they stayed on stage until dawn. Sometimes Luke thinks he’d be happy with that too.   
  
“Where the fuck did they go?” Luke asks Ashton as they leave together, having to shout to be heard.   
  
Ashton shakes his head instead of answering. It’s easier.   
  
“If they’re doing some stupid prank or something – ” Luke begins, but cuts himself off when they get backstage and are met with the sight of a flurry of activity. There is a crowd surrounding someone, someone Luke can see through the bodies. One of the bodies is Calum, and he looks back to catch Luke’s eye with a worried look on his face, and Luke panics.   
  
“Michael,” Ashton mutters, drawing the conclusion at the same moment Luke does. He breaks into a jog, with Luke right on his heels. “What happened?!”  
  
Michael is sitting with a towel pressed to his head, held there by someone else’s hand. The air smells like burnt hair, and like something else, like … barbecue. Like burnt _flesh_. Suddenly Luke can’t breathe.   
  
“I was fucking on fire!” Michael cries. He looks up at them. Only one eye is visible but it’s frantic. When the towel comes away, one whole side of his face bright red and blistering. He looks so fucking scared. Luke’s never seen him look like that before. He can’t think clearly. His heart is beating so fast he feels like he might be sick.   
   
“One of the pyro things got him,” Calum explains.  
  
“What the hell?” Ashton demands. He moves in closer to Michael, shoving someone else out of his way, and leaning over him.   
   
“It’s gonna be okay, Mikey,” Calum says. He’s holding one of Michael’s hands in his, squeezing it so tightly.  
   
“I can’t see.” Michael touches the burns under his eye. “Why can’t I see?!”  
   
“Don’t touch it,” a girl in a brightly colored caution vest says sharply, pushing his hand away.  
  
“Let’s move to a dressing room,” another voice says.  
   
Luke is frozen to the spot. Everything’s moving too quickly, and he can’t catch up. People are helping Michael up, helping him away, and Luke tries to call out his name, tries to make himself move, but he can’t.  
   
“We’re not gonna do it,” Calum is saying.  
   
“Obviously,” Ashton agrees.  
   
“Someone’s gotta go out there, then, and tell them.”  
   
“Did you get burned?” Luke suddenly asks. He notices the red on Calum’s arm when it moves. It’s the first thing he’s said in ten minutes.  
   
“A bit, it’s fine,” Calum brushes it off.  
   
“Cal got burnt too!” Ashton yells, just announcing it so that something will be done about it. A medic rushes over and Calum rolls his eyes and insists he’s okay but lets himself be led away.  
   
“I’ll be right back,” Ashton says, looking frazzled and pushing his sweaty curls off his forehead.  
   
Luke can hear him, through the sound system on the stage, telling the crowd Michael is hurt and they aren’t playing the encore. The screaming response is different than usual. It sounds concerned, somehow. Luke still can’t move.  
   
“Come with me,” someone says. Luke doesn’t even know who it is, but the man puts an arm around him and leads him down a hallway. They wait outside a door Luke assumes Michael is behind. The arm stays around Luke’s shoulder and he’s grateful for the contact. There’s a camera in his face for a moment, while he’s trying not to cry, but then Dave makes the guy leave. Luke had momentarily forgotten about the documentary.  
   
“I still can’t see!” Michael’s voice yells from inside the room.  
   
“Fuck,” Luke whispers. His stomach lurches and he brings his hands up to cover his face, desperate to hold in the tears but failing.  
   
“The ambulance is here,” a voice calls from down the hallway. Someone else opens the door and relays the message, and then there’s movement again, Michael flanked by two women, leading him out of the room.  
   
“Can I go with him?” Luke asks, to no one in particular.  
   
“Dave’s gonna drive us all in a few minutes,” Ashton says. Luke doesn’t remember him coming over.  
   
“How’s Calum?”  
   
“I’m fine,” Calum’s voice answers. “It just grazed my arm, it’s fine.”  
   
“Let’s go, then.” Luke hates that Michael will be in an ambulance all alone.  
   
The ride feels so long, even though it isn’t. Luke’s so scared of what will happen if Michael isn’t okay. If he loses an eye, if he’s badly scarred, if this isn’t something they can just laugh about tomorrow. He doesn’t say any of it out loud. It’s a half hour, maybe, that they sit in plastic chairs in a hallway and wait, until a nurse comes out of a room and says Michael is alright and that they can see him. Calum stands up, but Ashton holds him back. Lets Luke go in alone.  
   
Michael’s on an examination table, with half his face wrapped in bandages like a Halloween costume and a purple headband around his hairline. He looks up from his phone when Luke enters the room.  
   
“Texting my mum,” he says. “I don’t want her to worry.”  
   
“Are you okay?” Luke asks softly.  
   
Michael nods. “These’ll come off tomorrow. So I can still play the show. Don’t worry, okay? I can see now. I can play tomorrow.”  
   
Luke shakes his head. The show tomorrow night is the last thing Michael should be thinking about right now. “Or we’ll cancel it, it doesn’t matter.”  
   
“It matters,” Michael argues, stubborn as always even when he’s been through an ordeal. “I don’t wanna let anyone down.”  
   
“You wouldn’t be.”  
   
“Dave Grohl broke his leg on stage and finished the show.”  
   
“You got hit in the face with _fire_. I think that’s worse.”  
   
Michael just shrugs.  
   
Luke still doesn’t know what he’s doing, it’s all still a blur, but he walks over and takes Michael’s cheeks in his hands. Michael closes his eyes, and Luke kisses his forehead, just next to where the bandage ends. “Hey,” he whispers.  
   
“Hi,” Michael whispers back.  
   
“What happened?”  
   
“I don’t know. I saw it coming. I just couldn’t get out of the way fast enough and it hit me. My whole head was like. On fire.”  
   
“That’s so scary.”  
   
“Yeah.”  
   
“What did the doctor say?”  
   
“First degree burns. Which is the least amount of burns you can have. It could have been worse. I thought I was gonna be blind or something but my eye is okay now.”  
   
Luke nods. “Does it hurt?”  
   
Michael shrugs again.  
   
“Mikey.”  
   
“Yes. Stings, like … like a sunburn, but way worse. They put a punch of stuff on it, like a lotion or something. That hurt too.”  
   
Luke’s stomach flips over itself.  
   
“I wanna do the show tomorrow,” Michael insists. “So many people have tickets. It’s not fair to cancel.”  
   
“We’ll see,” Luke relents. He doesn’t give a fuck about the show. He needs Michael to be okay. “I was so scared, when I saw you.”  
   
“I’ll be alright. They said it wouldn’t even scar that bad.”  
   
“You’d still be beautiful. Even if it did.”  
   
Michael sighs, but then he smiles. “You were really scared?”  
   
“Yeah.” Luke smiles too. “Why does that make you happy?”  
   
“I don’t know. I guess you must love me or whatever.”  
   
“I do love you.” Luke kisses his lips this time. “Or whatever.”  
   
“Can we go back to the hotel? Just like watch Netflix for a while?” He’s trying to seem casual but he’s still freaked out, Luke can tell. He’s asking, without actually asking, for Luke to make it better.  
   
“Sure.” He helps Michael down off the table, and hugs him. Michael hangs on longer than Luke meant to, so Luke buries his face in Michael’s neck and holds him tight.  
 


End file.
